About

Team

Bernat Olle, Ph.D.

Chief Executive Officer

Dr. Olle is a co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Vedanta Biosciences. He has been a member of the founding teams of several companies of the PureTech portfolio and served as a member of the Board of Directors of Vedanta Biosciences and Follica Biosciences.

In 2013 Dr. Olle was named "Innovator of the Year" in MIT Technology Review Spain's "Innovators under 35" awards, and in 2015 he was awarded the Princess of Girona business award by the King of Spain. He completed his doctoral work at the Chemical Engineering Department at MIT, where he developed a novel method for large-scale bacterial culture. During his graduate work, Dr. Olle was awarded the "la Caixa" fellowship. Dr. Olle received his B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Spain, his M.S. and PhD. in Chemical Engineering Practice from MIT, and his M.B.A. from the MIT Sloan School of Management. He has published his work in journals including Nature and Nature Biotechnology.

Bruce Roberts, Ph.D.

Chief Scientific Officer

Dr. Roberts has 30 years of experience in biotechnology and pharmaceutical drug discovery and development. He most recently served as Head of Neuro-Immunology and Immune-Mediated Disease Research at Sanofi Genzyme where he directed pre-clinical efforts resulting in the introduction of therapeutic antibodies, gene therapies, cell therapies and small molecules into multiple clinical trials for the treatment of cancer, multiple sclerosis and autoimmunity. He also directed research efforts in support of several approved products including lemtrada, aubagio, thymoglobulin, Mozobil, alemtuzumab, leukine, chlofarabine and fludarabine and contributed to the generation of ecallantide.

Dr. Roberts has authored more than 50 peer-reviewed publications and contributed to several issued patents and patent applications. He received his PhD. in Biochemistry from the University of Ottawa, Canada.

Jonathan Freeman, Ph.D.

Chief Business Officer

Jonathan Freeman is Vedanta's Chief Business Officer. An industry veteran, Jonathan joined Vedanta following a career spanning two decades in leading roles within Merck KGaA, Baxter and Serono. Within Merck, Jonathan served as Senior Vice President, Head of Strategy Development and Portfolio Management, overseeing asset valuation, capital allocation, and strategy development guiding investment and corporate shifts resulting in, amongst other things, the launch of Bavencio in collaboration with Pfizer. Prior to Merck, Jonathan was Director of European M&A for Baxter, where he defined and executed external growth strategy, established commercial and manufacturing joint ventures, constructed, financed, and executed strategic business models and alliances working alongside multinational investment groups such as TPG and Goldman Sachs. During his time with Serono, Jonathan was Director of Corporate and Business Development, leading licensing, alliance management, the management of private equity relationships, and participating broadly in Corporate M&A. Jonathan was a former Vice President of the Swiss Pharma Licensing Group (now SwissHLG), representative to the International Pharma Society, a faculty member of the European Centre for Pharmaceutical Medicine (ECPM), and an Editor of the Business Development & Licensing Journal. Jonathan holds a First Class Honours BA in Biochemistry and an MA from Cambridge University, a Ph.D. in Molecular Pharmacology from the Imperial Cancer Research Fund (now CRUK) at the Edinburgh University Medical School, and an MBA from Geneva and Webster, St Louis Universities. Prior to entering the industry, Jonathan held assistant professor and post-doctoral positions in cancer research, gene therapy and virology in several leading academic settings including the Swiss Institute for Cancer Research (ISREC) and the Geneva Medical School (CMU) obtaining funding from the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) and the Royal Society of London.

Dan Couto

SVP of Process Development & Manufacturing

Mr. Couto has 25 years of experience in biotechnology, biologics drug development and cGMP manufacturing, including at Merck Sharp Dohme Biologics UK (formerly Avecia Biologics) where he served as Vice President of Commercial Manufacturing Operations and was responsible for late stage and commercial manufacturing operations. In addition, Mr. Couto has held senior positions with several biotech companies including Nuvelo, Genzyme Transgenics and Advanced Biosystems and, most recently, was Senior Vice President of Manufacturing and Facilities Operations at ContraFect Corporation where he was responsible for chemistry & manufacturing controls, supply chain, quality assurance and facilities.

Mr. Couto holds multiple U.S. patents. He received his B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Erik Spek, Ph.D., J.D.

Head of IP

Erik Spek is the head of Intellectual Property at Vedanta. Prior to his current position, Erik was Director of IP at Epizyme and worked at Boston-based IP law firm Wolf Greenfield. Erik graduated cum laude from Suffolk Law School in Boston. He earned his B.S. in Chemistry and Philosophy from Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam and his PhD. in Biophysical Chemistry from New York University.

Debra Winslow

VP Program Management & Operations Planning

Deb Winslow has joined Vedanta after working in the biotech industry for over 25 years in various roles from early product development through commercialization. She received a BS in biochemistry from UNH, an MBA from Bentley University, is a Regulatory Affairs Certified (RAC) professional and a Project Management Professional (PMP). Her roles is to set up program management and operational planning systems to ensure successful program execution across the company.